DVD Times reviews the Artificial Eye release of ‘Dersu Uzala’

Noel Megahey at DVD Times has reviewed the region-free release of Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala by Artificial Eye. While I personally think that the film review makes a little bit too big a deal of Kurosawa’s attempted suicide in 1971, the review of the DVD itself is excellent in terms of the information that it provides regarding the transfer, which unfortunately is not quite what we would hope it to be.

Make sure to read aspalex‘s very informative comment (#4) regarding the somewhat depressing state in which the original negative of Dersu Uzala is at Mosfilm.

Discussion

From what I can tell from DVD Beaver and other lesser sources, Spectrum (Region 3) and Kino (Region 0) are about the same in picture quality.
I’m sure a lot of films original prints and negatives are in poor shape at Mosfilm, I mean look at the state of almost every Russian film on DVD in any region.

You’re welcome, Vili! Really DVD Beaver is one of the best sites to compare different versions of films on DVD. The have screen caps for the majority of versions and bit rate info and other stuff. Really great!

It is a crying shame. I started enjoying Russian film about five years ago, so I have alot to catch up with. I wish some good capitalist would go ovwer there with the equipment and start transferring the original 70mm stock. Are they better with their early stuff, like the Eisenstein?

But for the most part all the Tarkovsky, Klimov, Shepitko etc. are all in pretty terrible condition. Although I think some of that has to do with the original stock they shot on and how poor some of it was in the first place, and then that was mis-treated in labs and such.

I didn’t know that, either! Us Amazon Affiliates, we need separate accounts for each regional store. Which is a bit of a bummer, as that also means that the money from sales is pretty much scattered around the world.